70 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. water, and immediately after rounding the point, we increased our Soundings 
to sixteen and seventeen fathoms. We had scarcely cleared the point, how- 
ever, when the wind failed us, and the boats were immediately sent a-head 
to tow, but a breeze springing up shortly after from the westward, obliged 
us to have recourse to another method of gaining ground which we had not 
hitherto practised : this was by using small anchors and whale-lines as warps, 
by which means we made great progress, till, at forty minutes after noon, 
we were favoured by a fresh breeze, which soon took us into an open space 
of clear water to the northward and westward. While we were thus em- 
ployed on board, Mr. Ross, after whom I named this point, had been des- 
patched in a boat to sound in-shore near it, where there were a great many 
large masses of ice aground, in order that we might be prepared to place the 
ships in the most advantageous position, should the ice unexpectedly close 
upon the shore. Mr. Ross reported, that he had found good depth of water 
in-shore, the ice being aground in five to seven fathoms, after which the water 
shoaled gradually towards the land. A little to the westward of Point Ross, 
there was a barrier of this kind of ice, composed of heavy masses firmly fixed 
to the ground at nearly regular intervals for about a mile, in a direction 
parallel to the beach. At right angles to this, a second tier projected, of the 
same kind of ice, extending to the shore, so that the two together formed a 
most complete harbour, within which, I believe, a ship might have been 
placed in case of necessity, without much danger from the pressure of the 
external floes of ice. It was natural for us to keep in view the possibility of 
our being obliged to pass the ensuing winter in such a harbour ; and, it must 
be confessed, that the apparent practicability of finding such tolerable security 
for the ships as this artificial harbour afforded, should we fail in discovering a 
more safe and regular anchorage, added not a little to the confidence with 
which our operations were carried on during the remainder of the present 
season. 
The land immediately to the north-westward of Point Ross forms a 
considerable bay, named after Mr. Skene, off which there was a large 
space of clear water, where we had to beat to the northward during the 
afternoon, as the ice lay in that direction. In standing off-and-on, we 
shoaled the water in one place very suddenly from nineteen to eleven 
fathoms, at the distance of one mile from the beach. Having tacked, I 
sent Mr. Bushnan to sound in-shore, where a shoal was discovered three 
quarters of a mile from the land, having three and four fathoms upon it, and 
